US ECONOMY

US Military Spending $558 Billion Annually

That doesn't include the Black Budget spending, which is the money spent in secret.

Interest on the Debt $398.6 Billion Annually

That money goes to whom? It goes to usurers.

If the US didn't have the Federal Reserve, it wouldn't have a national debt. It wouldn't be paying the usurers $398.6 billion a year on nearly $5 trillion in national debt (US Treasury securities owed). Japan and China hold huge percentages of the US debt securities.

This is all part of the banking scheme. The private bankers issue the currency. They lend out at interest the money they create.

When you add this interest payment to the military spending, you get $957 billion a year. If you add in the Black Budget, it goes well over one trillion.

If that money were spent properly, there wouldn't be one hungry or homeless child or person on the planet. Energy could be free, inexhaustible, and clean. Food could be free, organic, and abundant. Education through the post-graduate level could be free. The pattern could be repeated and spread throughout the entire economy of humanity.

What's Happen Though

We have a new class of robber barons, opulent self-indulgence, conspicuous consumption, the planned "business cycle" of booms and busts, a rigged economic system, continuing corporate and accounting scandals, home foreclosures, continued destruction of family farmers, and among other negatives, redistribution of wealth from the middle and lower classes to the upper class and especially the very top.

There is grossly unfair inequality.

What is the Church's goal? We seek the highest standard of living (quality of life) for everyone. We know that the poor and middle classes have been encouraged into the consumer-debt cycle where they are bled by the usurers (bankers, credit card companies, mortgage lenders, etc., charging huge interest). The lower and middle classes are not saving. This is where the Church comes in. By tithing of better to the Church (by donating before paying for anything else), those classes will in effect be investing in a kind of savings. They will be investing in the social-welfare safety net that the Church is supposed to be. They will be making it possible for the Church (its members; the people) to provide the necessities of life in direct contravention of the worst trend in income and wealth inequality since the Gilded Age in the US. Do you see that? Investing in the real Christian Commons is a direct answer to this terrible trend of hyper-greed spurred on by the false conservatives who are the base for Bush/Cheney. Therefore, please help the Church to grow the new system (new wineskin) by donating directly to the Church before you pay for anything else. This will be an entirely unselfish act on your part since the investment is long-term and for the sake of the many. It is, nevertheless, in your ultimate self-interest; however, that's an aftereffect and not your motivation. Your motivation is unselfishness. That makes it worthy.

How Much to Donate

Understand this. It is an investment.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. — Jesus (Matthew 13:44-46).

The Old Testament required tithing (10%). We've mentioned that Zacchaeus gave fifty percent while Joses (Joseph) Barnabas, the Levite who converted to Christianity, gave one hundred percent. Barnabas joined the Christian community one hundred percent. He became a missionary.

Thinking of this as an investment, understand that the upper class averages an investment rate of approximately twenty-three percent. They've been following this for decades. While they encourage those in classes below theirs to live beyond their means (saving nothing; paying huge sums in interest on money ultimately borrowed from the rich), they themselves save twenty-three percent and more, which they invest in insider deals that earn them thirty percent or more. This is how they mound up (pent up; hoard) the results of other people's (laborers) productivity.

Now, their system won't allow everyone to join. They don't want everyone joining. Who'd be left to serve them? They don't want to serve themselves let alone serve others.

Since they will never spread and sharing the wealth by allowing others to join and since others of conscience hate the thought of being so self-centered with wealth anyway, there is really only one investment open to the masses that the rich cannot block and that's the Church that will bring forth sharing. That's what the message of Jesus is all about. Consider it, and do the right thing.

The Economy in the Kingdom of Heaven

Rather than the current system, a system could simply issue interest free money into the economy based upon exactly the growth in productivity the people want. In that way, there would be no lack of supply of dollars and there would be no inflation or deflation. Best yet, get rid of money and simply have everyone work for the whole unselfishly.

The mechanics of U.S. Government debt

When the total amount of revenue collected by the U.S. Government is exceeded by the amount of money it spends (including spending on debt payments that are coming due), it issues new debt to cover the deficit. This debt typically takes the form of new issues of government bonds which are sold on the open market. However, the debt can also be monetized by which the U.S. Government sells the debt to the Federal Reserve. Monetized debt expands the money supply because these government securities become bank reserves held by the Federal Reserve that, under the system of Fractional Reserve Banking, are treated as an asset that the bank can then lend against. Because the money supply expands each time U.S. Government debt is monetized, the natural result is an inflationary boom caused by the expansion of new credit from the additional "reserves" that the Federal Reserve now has which will then result in a deflationary bust to complete the business cycle.

The ultimate consequence of monetizing U.S. debt is that it expands the money supply which will tend to dilute the value of dollars already in circulation. Thus, expanding the pool of money puts downward pressure on the dollar and upward pressure on inflation.1

There are arguments put forth by capitalists that say that the US debt as a percentage of gross domestic product is in line with history and other developed nations. Well, that doesn't make it right. When in history has capitalism been fair? Where in the world has it been or is it now fair?

The wages and salaries of people have nothing to do with what they deserve. People have been getting more and more education, but their average share of the national income has continued slipping.

National growth is tied directly to national sharing. The less sharing, the lower the growth.

Something serious must have happened in the 1970s as the trend toward greater economic equality rapidly reversed. Here are the numbers. The share of income received by the bottom 90% of the population was a modest 67% in 1970, but by 2000 this had shrunk to a mere 52%, according to a detailed study of U.S. income distribution conducted by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, published by the prestigious National Bureau of Economic Research in 2002. Put another way, the top 10% increased their overall share of the nation's total income by 15 percentage points from 1970 to 2000. This is a rather astonishing jump — the gain of the top 10% in these years was equivalent to more than the total income received annually by the bottom 40% of households.2

Globalization of transportation and communication has made this happen. Jobs were exported to exploit the poor in other nations. Everyone but the rich has been harm. The rich have been harmed also, but they'll take their money now and suffer the consequences later, since they don't believe in those consequences, or at least they strive mightily to pretend to themselves they don't believe in them.

However, with global warming, transportation is becoming a huge issue. The environmental costs are coming back to haunt the capitalist economies. Locally grown and made is becoming important again in the general mind.

Wages go down. Household expenses go up. Corporate profits go up. The national economy stagnates. Inflationary pressures continue. We also have witnessed tax cuts for the richest of the rich.

Make the rich even richer and the creative forces of market capitalism will be unleashed, resulting in more savings and consequently more capital investment, raising productivity and creating abundance for all. At any rate, that's the supply-side/neoliberal theory. However—and reminiscent of the false boom that defined the Japanese economy in the late 1980s—the big money has not gone into productive investments in the United States. Stripping out the money pumped into the residential real estate bubble, inflation-adjusted investment in machinery, equipment, technology, and structures increased only 1.4% from 1999 through 2005—an average of 0.23% per year. Essentially, productive investment has stagnated since the close of the dot-com boom. (Cypher)

2 James M. Cypher. "Slicing Up at the Long Barbeque: Who Gorges, Who Serves, and Who Gets Roasted?" dollars & sense. January-February 2007. Link. (last accessed: Saturday, April 07, 2007). Return to text body.

The following should appear at the end of every post:

According to the IRS, "Know the law: Avoid political campaign intervention":

Tax-exempt section 501(c)(3) organizations like churches, universities, and hospitals must follow the law regarding political campaigns. Unfortunately, some don't know the law.

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from participating in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. The prohibition applies to campaigns at the federal, state and local level.

Violation of this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes. Section 501(c)(3) private foundations are subject to additional restrictions.

Political Campaign Intervention

Political campaign intervention includes any activities that favor or oppose one or more candidates for public office. The prohibition extends beyond candidate endorsements.

Contributions to political campaign funds, public statements of support or opposition (verbal or written) made by or on behalf of an organization, and the distribution of materials prepared by others that support or oppose any candidate for public office all violate the prohibition on political campaign intervention.

Factors in determining whether a communication results in political campaign intervention include the following:

Whether the statement identifies one or more candidates for a given public office

Whether the statement expresses approval or disapproval of one or more candidates' positions and/or actions

Whether the statement is delivered close in time to the election

Whether the statement makes reference to voting or an election

Whether the issue addressed distinguishes candidates for a given office

Many religious organizations believe, as we do, that the above constitutes a violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That said, we make the following absolutely clear here:

The Real Liberal Christian Church and Christian Commons Project not only do not endorse any candidate for any secular office, we say that Christianity forbids voting in such elections.

Furthermore, when we discuss any public-office holder's position, policy, action or inaction, we definitely are not encouraging anyone to vote for that office holder's position.

We are not trying to influence secular elections but rather want people to come out from that entire fallen system.

When we analyze or discuss what is termed "public policy," we do it entirely from a theological standpoint with an eye to educating professing Christians and those to whom we are openly always proselytizing to convert to authentic Christianity.

It is impossible for us to fully evangelize and proselytize without directly discussing the pros and cons of public policy and the positions of secular-office holders, hence the unconstitutionality of the IRS code on the matter.

We are not rich and wouldn't be looking for a fight regardless. What we cannot do is compromise our faith (which seeks to harm nobody, quite the contrary).

We render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. We render unto God what is God's.

When Caesar says to us that unless we shut up about the unrighteousness of Caesar's policies and practices, we will lose the ability of people who donate to us to declare their donations as deductions on their federal and state income-tax returns, we say to Caesar that we cannot shut up while exercising our religion in a very reasonable way.

We consider the IRS code on this matter as deliberate economic duress (a form of coercion) and a direct attempt by the federal government to censor dissenting, free political and religious speech.

It's not freedom of religion if they tax it.

And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. (Matthew 17:24-26)

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